New design and Apple-made external displays coming, but not this year.

Wonders never cease. Apple, normally secretive to a fault and allergic to talking about future products before it considers them ready, summoned a small group of journalists from outlets including TechCrunch and Mashable to its headquarters earlier this month to tell them that the Mac Pro will once again be completely redesigned. But it isn't saying what the redesign will look like, and a new Mac Pro is not launching until sometime "next year."

Further Reading

The 2013 Mac Pro was controversial right from the jump. It replaced a hulking desktop with multiple expansion slots, multiple CPU sockets, and multiple internal drive bays with a tiny shiny computer that looked more than a little like a high-end designer trash can ("can't innovate, my ass," a defiant Phil Schiller said when it was announced). Users could still upgrade the RAM and the SSD themselves relatively easily, but most internal expansion space was replaced with a whopping six Thunderbolt 2 ports. Brave buyers could also pop in a new CPU if they were comfortable tearing the system apart, but the machine offered only one CPU socket, and its proprietary graphics cards couldn't be upgraded unless Apple released new versions (something it never did).

We don't know much about the new design except that we can expect it to be a response to the old one. Apple acknowledges that the new Mac Pro design will be "modular," which could mean anything but hopefully at least means that users will be able to swap out their own drives and GPUs if they want. The company wants to be able to "keep [the machine] fresh with regular improvements" and to make the Pro Apple's "highest-end, high throughput desktop system." The system will also be introduced with a new first-party external display, a business that Apple said it was leaving last year when it discontinued its Thunderbolt Display and leaned on LG to provide external screens for the new MacBook Pros.

Apple says that the current Mac Pro's design ended up being too thermally limited and inflexible. In particular, it wouldn't be possible to redesign that system around a single powerful GPU instead of the two more modest graphics cards it currently ships with; the side of the system that housed the GPU would just get too hot. Workloads that benefitted from two GPUs "didn't materialize to fit that as broadly as [Apple] hoped," meaning that many Pro workloads just didn't benefit as much from two GPUs as they would from, say, one big GPU or multiple processors.

Apple also broke out a few stats for its Mac lineup to demonstrate that sales are still healthy, overall: the user base is approaching 100 million users (for reference, Apple sold 212 million iPhones in 2016 alone, and that was a "bad" year), notebooks represent 80 percent of sales and desktops just 20 percent, and the new design has driven MacBook Pro sales specifically up 20 percent year over year.

In the meantime, we'll see an upgraded version of the iMac later this year—Apple says that many of its "pro" customers have moved to Apple's all-in-one, whether because it meets their needs better, it gets more regular updates, or both. Again, we have no details on what that upgrade will entail, but there are already newer CPU and GPU options out there that are suitable for the iMac.

Back to the current Mac Pro: starting sometime today, you should at least be able to get more bang for your buck. The base $2,999 model will now include a 6-core CPU, FirePro D500 GPUs, and 16GB of RAM, while the $3,999 option steps up to an 8-core CPU and D700 GPUs with the same amount of RAM. It's a small comfort after over three years of silence, but it's better than nothing.

The Mac Mini, as usual, didn't merit a mention beyond boilerplate, as relayed by Daring Fireball: "the Mac Mini is an important product in our lineup and we weren’t bringing it up because it’s more of a mix of consumer with some pro use." It's still around but Apple isn't ready to say anything about its future plans.

Andrew Cunningham
Andrew has a B.A. in Classics from Kenyon College and has over five years of experience in IT. His work has appeared on Charge Shot!!! and AnandTech, and he records a weekly book podcast called Overdue. Twitter@AndrewWrites

Apple says that many of its "pro" customers have moved to Apple's all-in-one, whether because it meets their needs better, it gets more regular updates, or both.

Do these options combined translate to "because they had no choice if they wanted to stay on the Mac platform when moving to a (reliable) 5k platform?"

Edit: I know this was the case for me after evaluating the problems reported by MacBook Pro users and the very few 4&5k Thunderbolt displays available in late 2015...

I love my 4GHz 5k iMac, but wish I could use its display for other purposes, and could buy another standalone Apple display with the same specs to pair with the iMac, and would like to be able to upgrade the SSD in the future without resorting to heat guns and special iFixit tool kits...

Imagine if they were a company making billions, yet couldn't manage to regularly update systems which make use of commonly available hardware...

The fact that they're saying they ran into thermal issues means they have been working on upgrades. A company with Apple's engineering talent doesn't give up easily, and I expect they hoped to solve the issue before finally deciding it wasn't possible.

Never mind the fact that there hasn't been a whole lot of new parts available for Apple to even consider using until recently.

In a briefing with TechCrunch, Apple revealed that there are now nearly 100 million active Mac users.-While many estimates suggest there are more than 1 billion Windows-powered PCs in use in the world, Microsoft officially claims there are 400 million active users of Windows 10 itself. That makes Windows 10, without the many versions of Windows before it, four times more popular than the Mac.-Apple also revealed this week that as a business the Mac is nearing a $25 billion run rate, making it nearly big enough to be considered a Fortune 100 company by itself.

Please go back to the cheese grater style...I'm still rocking a Mac Pro 1.1 at home, which is stuck at El Capitan unfortunately since Sierra is not supported on this machine.

Close to 10 years old and still going strong since I could max out the RAM, change the GPU and install a decent SATA SSD in this baby...which is exactly what I expect from this new Mac Pro...don't fuck it up again, Apple...please??

Refreshing that Apple chose to once again to let pros know well ahead of time that their high end system is going to be coming, to keep them in the fold.

It's going to be great to have whatever they come up with on my desk. We just bought out a bunch of Mac Pros last month when the lease ran out for the cost of two months' payments. Not a bad deal at all. But I'm betting my coworker who just bought one for his video side business is now kicking himself, considering the new prices on the current model.

Apple should come up with something pretty sweet. But I'm nearing retirement, so I'm going to opt for whatever MacBook Pro comes out this fall.

MacPro Early 2018... bet same pricing tiers $1999, $2499 and $2999+ with CannonLake-D Intel Processors (assuming Intel will have Xeon Cannonlake).Will it have more than one PCIe M.2 slot?Will it use new AMD Vega or Navi GPUs?Will it have mix of USB3 and USB-C ?

MacPro Early 2018... bet same pricing tiers $1999, $2499 and $2999+ with CannonLake-D Intel Processors (assuming Intel will have Xeon Cannonlake).Will it have more than one PCIe M.2 slot?Will it use new AMD Vega or Navi GPUs?Will it have mix of USB3 and USB-C ?

Modern Apple admitting they fucked up with the current Mac Pro's design, apologizing to pro customers, and giving something resembling a roadmap for the future is kind of wild. I mean, I'm glad, don't get me wrong. I just never would've expected them to do it.

the last desktop Mac I had was a Power Mac G5, and when I first saw this version of the Mac Pro all I could think was "seriously?" It reeks so much of old-school SGI that I was surprised they didn't use proprietary DIMMs as well.

It's like pro Mac users are in an abusive relationship. "We'll upgrade and do a better job this time!" and this the second or third time they've been neglected and overcharged for an outdated system. We have to expect they'll do the same next time around.

If they could just do an up-to-date version of the old cheesegrater, I think that's all most people would want.

Edit: Ok, I don't normally do this but I'm genuinely puzzled by the downvotes. Expn?

For one thing, they are very heavy and can be painful to move around depending on how much tolerance you have to edges digging into your hands. The design of the G4s was much nicer with rounded handles and internals that are easily accessible and laid out horizontally once open since everything is attached to the side door.

I mean, I get aesthetics being important on the consumer level.....but on what planet should workstations EVER be form preceding function? What's the value in a weird shaped case just for the sake of being different for a productivity tool?

I'm not trying to be a troll here but I literally don't understand it. I like the workstations I support to be nice big boxes simple to repair/replace/upgrade. Literally any deviation from that would be a deal breaker.

Since Jobs left, even before he died, Apple has had an identity problem. Not because the people there aren't very capable and talented, but because Jobs took so much of the air out of the room there was no identity that didn't involve him in some way. But a company that is run according to the memories and wishes of a shade is vulgar, slowly losing its vitality until it can no longer sustain the attraction it had for new talent.

Unfortunately, this wouldn't be the first time Apple lost its vitality after Jobs left, but this time the board can't ask him back.

I hope Apple gets out of this slump in PC (they seem fine in phone for now). It's better for the whole industry if there are at least two major players* in any field competing against each other, also-rans are generally bad for consumers.

* Do we count Linux -- all umptillion** versions of it -- as just one competitor in the market? Don't know, can't say, and not sure it matters in the end.

** There are also all the versions of Windows newer versions of Windows always compete against.

If they could just do an up-to-date version of the old cheesegrater, I think that's all most people would want.

Edit: Ok, I don't normally do this but I'm genuinely puzzled by the downvotes. Expn?

ROFL, I'm actually quite a fan of the cheese grater. I think it's the most aesthetically pleasing design they have come up with.

For this and every Pro, it would be nice if Apple took the approach of scoping out reasonable mechanical interface and thermal considerations, then encapsulating that space in a shape, then making the shape look relatively nice.

Starting with a shape and then trying to fit as much as possible into that shape is a perfectly valid approach to making and then selling a thing, but it seems pants-on-head backwards for the (admittedly smaller every year) hardcore workstation crowd.

Consumer systems can (even should) be designed from the top down, like, by a designer. Professional systems should be engineered. You can smooth the edges later.

If they could just do an up-to-date version of the old cheesegrater, I think that's all most people would want.

Edit: Ok, I don't normally do this but I'm genuinely puzzled by the downvotes. Expn?

Likely because the name 'cheesegrater'. I never called it that.But I agree, that a slotted workstation is still a plus. Let me add GPUs, not be constricted to what you (Apple) think I need.

The late 2012 MacPro was refined that it had improved (final beta!) with CPUs on a tray, better Bluetooth and wifi, better ODD, and have RAID drives and larger cap HDDs or even SSDs and PCIe SSD (that boot!). And you could put in (flashed) better GPUs. The redesigned power supply and fans made it quieter (than previous gen...we all remember that airplane turbine spinning up...there go my papers!!).

I think the cylinder was a Cube-Mini-Pro development. It was smart but it was still a result of one important flaw: That Apple NEVER asks the end user what they need. Instead, Apple creates what they feel you need. Anything more is not profitable. Anything less, is served by another Apple product.

It's like pro Mac users are in an abusive relationship. "We'll upgrade and do a better job this time!" and this the second or third time they've been neglected and overcharged for an outdated system. We have to expect they'll do the same next time around.

That's what happens when your group accounts for ~1% of sales and probably much less than 1% of profits. The vast, vast majority of macbook pro users are people who couldn't care less about lack of ports or power. Mac Pro users are a rare group among the rare.

My money is on another big hardware letdown in 2018. The sad, harsh reality is that as of 2017, the Hackintosh route is probably the most feasible option for getting serious muscle with OS X.

It's like pro Mac users are in an abusive relationship. "We'll upgrade and do a better job this time!" and this the second or third time they've been neglected and overcharged for an outdated system. We have to expect they'll do the same next time around.

That's what happens when your group accounts for ~1% of sales and probably much less than 1% of profits. The vast, vast majority of macbook pro users are people who couldn't care less about lack of ports or power. Mac Pro users are a rare group among the rare.

My money is on another big hardware letdown in 2018. The sad, harsh reality is that as of 2017, the Hackintosh route is probably the most feasible option for getting serious muscle with OS X.

"My money is on another big hardware letdown in 2018." A very safe bet!